on the back2back recording with multiple samples...Nope.. you cannot... with some trickery you can use multiple slots.. but hehnope would be the easy answer..

yes it records, and can play it back directly when done..or while recording with slight trickery.. (its awesome fun)

no on the midi files..

Yes, do have 2 sets of stereo outputs (master and cue)and if you really want, they can be used seperate.. and yes, if you pan 1 track to the left.. and the other track to the right.. you should have 2 mono outputs..

Judging by the response and some other threads it seems like there are lots of tricks to get things to work in custom ways. I guess I will have to see if I feel like putting my wizard hat on!

oh yes, if you like putting on a wizard-hat .. the octa is fun..if you dont like a wizards hat... its probably not or atleast its still funbut less fun then a machine which do not require a wizards hat..

Cool, we'll see. As long as it doesn't slow me down I'm fine with memorizing some tricks. I just want to be able to record loops into the octatrack, do some sketches and then put together final arrangements on the computer with the option to use the octatrack later with hardware live.

One thing I've learned about it is that it's better to go into it with an open mind.Let the OT teach you, and once you're comfortable using it, everything will come easily.As opposed to learning it while trying to accomplish some preconceived notion of how you want it to work; which can be frustrating, and in my opinion, not an effective way to learn how to use it.

I have a friend who bought one, it was his first piece of hardware. He loves it, but his idea was to buy it and start using it to perform live his album that he'd made in Ableton. This can be done in any number of different ways, but it's a hell of a way to learn the machine. I think he struggled with making it work for him, after doing everything on a computer before that. My suggestion to him was to just have fun with it, start some new stuff from scratch, just play around, learn all the features and functions so that you're able to move through it quickly. Then when you look back, after knowing how the machine "thinks" it'll be a piece of cake to get it to do what you "think."